Topic: Patents

NFTs and IP – Your opportunity to comment

On November 23, 2022, the US Patent and Trademark Office and the US Copyright Office issued a request for public comment on the subject of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) and intellectual property rights. Comments are due by Monday, January 9, 2023. In addition, the Offices will offer three public roundtables: one panel on NFTs and patents … Continue reading

Are we (virtually) there yet? Waiting for the rise of the metaverse from a brand owner’s perspective

By Georgina Hey (AU) and Isobel Taylor (AU) on September 29, 2022 Posted in Brands, Consumer goods, Intellectual Property, Patents, technology and innovation, Trademark

We are now almost one year on from Mark Zuckerberg’s much talked-about October 2021 letter announcing, among other things, the change of the name of his company from Facebook to Meta, reflecting the company’s commitment to revolutionising social connection through virtual reality. Zuckerberg’s expansive vision of a metaverse currently remains more of a fantasy than … Continue reading

Russia enables free use of Russian patents and other intellectual property of rights holders in countries committing “unfriendly acts”

By Clemens Rübel and Valerie Barker on April 8, 2022 Posted in Intellectual Property, Patents

On 7 March 2022 a decree of the Russian government took effect, announcing that compensation need not be paid for the unauthorised use of Russian patents, utility models and designs to rights holders connected with foreign countries committing “unfriendly acts” against Russian legal entities and individuals. In the case of patents, the citizenship of the … Continue reading

Design protection in China and abroad with a single filing

By Justin Davidson (HK) and Stanley Ng on April 6, 2022 Posted in Patents

Design patents, sometimes referred to as industrial designs, protect the aesthetic appearance of a product. As with other registered IP rights, the protection offered is, generally speaking, territorial in scope. In other words, unless international or regional treaties are available, a grant of design rights has to be obtained individually in each country of interest. … Continue reading

How does an offer for sale affect the patentee’s profitability – an economic analysis from the SPC

By Justin Davidson (HK) and Stanley Ng on November 2, 2021 Posted in Patents

Under the PRC Patent Law, the offering for sale of an infringing product constitutes an act of infringement, regardless of whether the product is actually sold or not. However, there are divergent views as to what damages arise merely from such offering (without any actual sale). According to one school of thought, the patentee does … Continue reading

Jaguar Land Rover vs. Land Wind: A typical case of simultaneous enforcement of IP rights and unfair competition claim

By Justin Davidson (HK), Edward Yau (HK) and Leslie Xu on September 24, 2021 Posted in Patents

As an old Chinese proverb goes, “what one loses on the swings, he gets back on the roundabouts.” This is exactly what happened to Jaguar Land Rover in its claim against Land Wind (Jiangling Motors) in China for copying of Jaguar Land Rover’s car design. Background After their patent battle from 2014 to 2019, the … Continue reading

Federal Circuit upholds constitutionality of TTAB judges

By Andrea Shannon (US) and Robert Greeson (US) on September 7, 2021 Posted in Patents, Trademark

This week the Federal Circuit rejected a constitutional challenge to the Secretary of Commerce’s appointment of administrative judges to the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (“USPTO”). The decision comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s decision in June in Arthrex v. Smith & Nephew, which stated … Continue reading

Consultation Open for Australia’s Medical and Biotechnology Patent Box

By Jackie O'Brien (AU) on July 13, 2021 Posted in General, Intellectual Property, Patents

On 5 July 2021, the Government released its Discussion Paper setting out the Government’s proposal and seeking views from key stakeholders. The paper will be open for submissions until 16 August 2021. Now is the opportunity for stakeholders to put forward their suggestions as to what a patent box in Australia should entail. Patent boxes … Continue reading

Combating the unsustainable rise of patent application numbers in the PRC

By Justin Davidson (HK) and Stanley Ng on February 22, 2021 Posted in Intellectual Property, Patents

In the last decade there has been an exponential increase in the amount of patent filing originating from China, which, according to a recently published USPTO report, can be attributed to certain non-market factors including subsidies and targets set by various governmental authorities in China. Coincidently, or perhaps not coincidentally, the China National Intellectual Property … Continue reading

2020 Year in Review – PRC Patent Laws and Practices

By Justin Davidson (HK) and Stanley Ng on February 4, 2021 Posted in Intellectual Property, Patents

2020 was a year of change and challenge. This holds true not only for the way we live and work, but also in relation to the patent laws and practices in the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”). In the last year, a number of significant amendments affecting various aspects of patent prosecution and enforcement were … Continue reading

China’s 2020 Patent Law Reform and Patent Linkage System

By Justin Davidson (HK) and Stanley Ng on November 26, 2020 Posted in Patents

Patent Law Reform We discussed the second draft of proposed amendments to the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”) Patent Law in our previous blog post here. Since then, on 17 October 2020 the PRC National People’s Congress (“NPC”) approved most of the amendments, though the law as passed is different from the draft in two … Continue reading

China Releases Draft Patent Law Amendment

By Justin Davidson (HK) and Stanley Ng on July 24, 2020 Posted in Patents

On 3rd July 2020, the National People’s Congress (NPC) of the People’s Republic of China released a second draft of proposed amendments to the PRC Patent Law for public consultation. In response to opinions from various government authorities and experts, the second draft incorporates several important changes of note: Partial design protection The draft includes … Continue reading

German patent interim injunctions require the patent to have survived validity proceedings

By Maximilian Schmitz and Clemens Rübel on July 13, 2020 Posted in Patents

In its decision dated 12 December 2019, the Higher Regional Court Munich ruled that in principle, an interim injunction for patent infringement should not be ordered unless it can be satisfied that the validity of the patent-in-suit is ensured, for example where the patent is shown to have “survived” contested proceedings on validity (Higher Regional … Continue reading

Insights from the Australian Intellectual Property Report 2020

By Amanda Caldwell (AU) and Vicky Zhang (AU) on June 16, 2020 Posted in Copyright, General, Patents, Trademark

Intellectual Property (IP) Australia published their 2020 edition of the Australian IP Report (the IP Report) on 24 April 2020. The IP Report, which can be accessed here, provides a current overview of the IP sector in Australia and the latest data on the IP rights (IPR) administered by IP Australia. Reports such as the … Continue reading

Be careful how you ask – Canadian court considers demand letters

By Amy Grenon (CA) and Colin Hyslop (CA) on May 11, 2020 Posted in General, Patents

In the recent decision, Fluid Energy Group Ltd v Exaltexx Inc, 2020 FC 81, the Canadian Federal Court granted an interlocutory injunction prohibiting a plaintiff patent holder in a patent infringement action from sending cease and desist letters to suppliers associated or involved with the defendant alleged infringer. This decision builds upon other recent Canadian … Continue reading

Court Suspensions Continue, with Some Exceptions

By Madeleine Hodgson (CA) and Renaud Garon Gendron on April 27, 2020 Posted in Copyright, Counterfeiting, General, Patents, Trademark

Please see our updated version of this article, published July 10, 2020. An Update on the Response from Canadian Courts to COVID-19 We are now more than a month in to social distancing measures, and it is time for an update on the status of the courts across Canada. As with the rest of us, … Continue reading

An AI system cannot be « inventor » according to the EPO

By Clément Monnet and Nilofar Moini Shabestari (FR) on April 24, 2020 Posted in Patents

On January 27, 2020, the European Patent Office (EPO) published the reasons for its decisions to reject two European patent applications[1] under which an artificial intelligence system, named “DABUS”, had been designated as the inventor. The applications[2] concerned two inventions created without human intervention: a beverage container based on fractal geometry and a device based on flickering … Continue reading

Response from Canadian Courts to COVID-19

By Madeleine Hodgson (CA) and Renaud Garon Gendron on March 21, 2020 Posted in Copyright, General, Patents, Trademark

Please see our updated version of this article, published July 10, 2020. We know you have a lot to think about and plan right now and over the next few weeks. You can rely on us to keep your intellectual property litigation matters moving forward. To that end, we wanted to provide an update on … Continue reading

UPDATE ON COVID-19 : CIPO announces extensions in wake of outbreak in Canada

By Mihaela Dumitrean and Catherine Daigle (CA) on March 21, 2020 Posted in Copyright, General, Patents, Trademark

Given the many challenges faced by all businesses in dealing with the COVID-19 outbreak, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) has advised that it will relax filing deadlines for the remainder of March 2020. This decision was first announced on March 16, 2020 and further updated yesterday, March 19, 2020. What you need to know All … Continue reading

CIIs – The Australian Full Court Encompass Decision

By Helen Macpherson (AU) and Harrison Ottaway (AU) on October 29, 2019 Posted in General, Patents

Overview The patentability of computer implemented inventions (CII) has long been a contentious topic in Australian patent law. A few months ago, we wrote about Justice Robertson’s decision in Rokt Pte Ltd v Commissioner of Patents, which overturned the Australian Patent Office’s rejection of a patent application for a CII relating to a digital advertising … Continue reading